Mt. Excellence

“They read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall on an eReader but refuse to drink Château Lynch-Bages in a Styrofoam cup.”

— The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Incerto Book 4) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The relentless pursuit of excellence – even anointed excellence – is not sustainable or expected. 

Most things do not need to be done with excellence, they just need to be done well enough. 

Pick and choose those moments when you exceed expectations.  Most of the time people don’t care, they just want whatever it is they want done to be done.  

The ONE THING for today: Don’t put turn your To-Do list into divine tablets of stone.  You don’t need to climb Mt. Siani every day.  Save the tablets of stone for the very few things that really do need to be done with excellence.

The rest of the stuff can just be done well enough to be able to check it off the list and move on to the next thing.